Among the (sometimes) competitive community of mathematicians who (sometimes) happily self-identify as strange, László Lovász stands out. That’s because the only thing odd about Lovász, his colleagues say, is that he is normal and nice.

Lovász is a universally loved mathematician and combinatorialist — a professor atEötvös Loránd University in his native Hungary and the recipient of a slew of international awards, including the Bolyai, Gödel, Knuth, Kyoto, Széchenyi and Wolf prizes.

Jean-Pierre Wintenberger was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1954. He got his first thesis in 1978 and his Thèse d'Etat (Habilitation) in 1984 in Grenoble, under the supervision of Jean-Marc Fontaine. He held the position of researcher in CNRS from 1978 to 1991, first in Grenoble then in Orsay. He has been a professor in Université de Strasbourg since 1991.

Assistant Professor Marcus Roper's goal is to apply mathematics to make new discoveries about how cells solve physical challenges. Those challenges and the solutions organisms have found for them have left deep imprints on how life has evolved. For instance, how and why did multicellular life arise?